Customer Reviews

Dr. Demento Presents: Greatest Christmas Novelty CD

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have searched and searched for the song "I want a Hippo... for Christmas" and found it! This CD contained several silly songs that are hard to find these days and rarely heard anymore. Thanks!

This one lives up to it's title. It is indeed "the greatest Christmas novelty CD of all time". You get practically every great Christmas novelty song ever recorded. Classics from the Chipmunks, Spike Jones, Stan Freberg and many others. It even includes that overplayed "Grandma" song. My personal favorite Christmas novelty, "Green Chri$tma$", is here. And chances are that your favorite Christmas novelty is here, too. This is one of my favorite CDs from my huge Christmas CD collection. Highly recommended.

Dr. Demento's collection of Holiday novelty songs is a weird and wonderful find. Just when it looked like the genre had been trampled to death with the success of "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer," the good Doctor shows us that there are richer (and funnier) X-mas musical parodies to enjoy.

Granted, some of these tracks are inevitable additions on Christmas discs that cover a specific era, or only include songs that were commercial successes: the tracks by the Chipmunks, Spike Jones and Elmo & Patsy are almost as tedious as a Kenny G Holiday collection. Fortunately, there are plenty of lesser-known gems here, like Gayla Peevey's bouncy "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas" and Tom Lehrer's "Christmas Carol," a witty and sharp commentary on Holiday commercialism.

This collections spans about 40 years, but the selections generally complement each other, rather than sound out of place. The humor of the material here also spans a wide area, from goofy-voiced tunes for kids to sly, insinuating musical parody. Some of the choices are obvious, but others are wonderfully inexplicable, like "I'm A Christmas Tree" and "I Saw DADDY Kissing Santa Claus." Two of the more recent tracks (from Cheech & Chong and Weird Al Yankovic) are classics that appear (to my knowledge) in this collection only.

There are a few lame entries: "Christmas Dragnet" will only appeal to fans of the TV show, and Bob & Doug McKenzie's (of SCTV fame) "12 Days of Christmas" is similarly limited. The "Jingle Bells" cover here is simply annoying, though it's probably appealing to kids and drunks.

Christmas music, as a sub-genre of Pop music, is generally not an area that produces a lot of unique performances. The sentiments and well-wishings of classic songs like "Silent Night" or even "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" tend to be lost when people buy collections for the singer and not the material. Dr. Demento's addled and brilliant collection is a sure-bet for people who are tired of Diva-esque Christmas albums, or who simply refuse to be conventional.

-Mic

My wife hates when I pull this one out at Christmas time. I don't care - I still think Santa Claus and his Old Lady is one of the funniest songs out there. Christmas is about tradition, but this CD gives a little variety to the holidays

My family used to own this CD when our adult sons were younger. Then we moved and it got lost somehow. I had to buy another one because now I have an 8 year old. Our family tradition for many years has been to drive around on December 23 with homemade construction paper awards and present them to homeowners whose Christmas lights deserve an award. Playing Dr. Demento's wacky Christmas tunes as we drive around is an essential ingredient. It's like a Greatest Hits of silly Christmas songs, and appropriate for the whole family.

Stressed out? Need to wrap a million gifts? Cooking Christmas dinner for 30? Don't fret--relief is here. Put up your feet, quaff an egg nog and enjoy some of the funniest takes on the holidays ever compiled. I've found myself decking the halls while singing "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas," wishing that I knew what was in a "Tom and Yerry" so I could whip up a batch. Appropriate for the whole family, with everything from dogs barking out "Jingle Bells" to Grandma meeting her untimely end by reindeer. My own favorite is "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." Tons of fun--enjoy!

Put this on for your unwitting friends next time they are over around Christmas time and you'll all be laughing for quite a while. This is a truly diverse collection of timeless, spoofy Christmas songs to be played just for the fun of it. Some of the tracks are just plain silly, others are just plain weird, and still others offer a humorous social commentary about the commercialism of Christmas. From wonderful, lesser-known comedians to the Chipmunks and Weird Al, it's all here. If you love Christmas and have any kind of sense of humor, get this CD and enjoy!

Greetings to you!

I was very pleased to find that Amazon.com had this CD for sale. I used to listen to Doctor Demento on KMET-94.7-Radio, in Los Angeles, California many, many years ago. All is gone now but not forgotton: KMET is no-more, they changed format, call letters, etc... KMET was a pioeneer in Radio, when it came to "Rock and Roll" music. I listened to them exclusivly for the entire 18 years of their existence. After they were gone, KLOS-Radio was the only thing close enough left to listen to. Too bad that after all that time, a new owner came in and changed everything. Fired all of the DJ's, changed the call-letters, and changed to format to "Easy Listening", (AKA: Elevator Music I call it!). Doctor Demento had his radio program every Sunday night. Later, he took his radio show accross the nation, on a syndicated, shorter version of the same show. I once had the 45-Single Record of "Cheech and Chong's": "Santa Claus and His Old Lady" in my collection. where it went to, I'll never know! They never put this cut on any of their albumns, it was only available on the 45-Single Record. I remember that on the B-Side of the record was "Dave", another classic from Cheech and Chong. Now every Christmas I think about that comedy-cut, and wonder how to get a copy of it. I hear it played on some radio stations, but until now I never have found it on any record, tape or CD. Thank you, thank you, once again for bringing back a fond memory of my past! Note: PS... All of the other comedy-cuts on this Doctor Demento Christmas CD are "Classic-Great Hits" too! I just love it!!

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Mark Motta

Tis the season to be jolly. The Doctor gives us another dose of laughter and merriment. Some on the songs will have you laughing so loud that Santa is sure to hear you in the North Pole.

Laughter cures stress, and the holiday season is probably the most stressful time of year. So a collection of side-splitting songs, about Christmas yet, is a great way to laugh at and with holiday spirits old and new. Dr. Demento gathers all the greats here: songs mocking the commercialism associated with Christmas (Allen Sherman's "12 Days of Christmas," Tom Lehrer's "Christmas Carol,")plus funny holiday ditties from Elmo & Patsy, Three Stooges, Spike Jones and others. Then there's "Green Christmas," Stan Freberg's retelling of Dickens' "Christmas Carol" from an advertsing perspective. It is a golden smackdown of the holiday advertising ethos he helped create and destroy from the inside. The album makes me miss not only Christmases past, but radio past and the classic Dr.Demento radio show I enjoyed in my youth.